I.—You are hard to please, and I see you can forgive nothing short of the sublimities.
He.—True, in chess, women, poetry, eloquence, music, and all such fiddle-faddle. What is the use of mediocrity in these matters?
I.—Little enough, I agree. But the thing is that there must be a great number of men at work, for us to make sure of the man of genius: he is one out of a multitude. But let that pass. ’Tis an age since I have seen you. Though I do not often think about you when you are out of sight, yet it is always a pleasure to me to meet you. What have you been about?
He.—What you, I, and everybody else are about—some good, some bad, and nothing at all. Then, I have been hungry, and I have eaten when opportunity offered; after eating, I have been thirsty, and now and then have had something to drink. Besides that, my beard grew, and as it grew I had it shaved.
I.—There you were wrong; it is the only thing wanting to make a sage of you.
He.—Ay, ay; I have a wide and furrowed brow, a glowing eye, a firm nose, broad cheeks, a black and bushy eyebrow, a clean cut mouth, a square jaw. Cover this enormous chin with amplitude of beard, and I warrant you it would look vastly well in marble or in bronze.
I.—By the side of a Cæsar, a Marcus Aurelius, a Socrates.
He.—Nay, I should be better between Diogenes, Laïs, and Phryne. I am brazenfaced as the one, and I am happy to pay a visit to the others.
I.—Are you always well?